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A Little Too Quiet: Nadir Omowale on the Ferndale Public Library Podcast

An AMAZING public library! That’s just one of the perks my family enjoys living here in Ferndale, Michigan, right across the street from Detroit. They are a forward thinking bunch over there on 9 Mile Road. Forward thinking enough to have funk music in the courtyard in the summer, and forward thinking enough to have a podcast! This was a fun and informative conversation. Check it out!

We’re chatting with singer/songwriter/producer Nadir Omowale, an award-winning musician and the leader of a formidable funk-rock ensemble. Nadir Omowale gave a memorable performance at one of our Summer Concert Series showcases, and it was with his advice and encouragement that we wound up substantially enhancing our gear game at the library, particularly when it comes to sound systems for live events. We spoke with Omowale about his love of music, but especially about the influence of not only icons like Prince, but his mother, who was a dedicated volunteer to community causes, including serving on her local library board.

LISTEN HERE:

WAIT!! WAIT!! BACK UP…
From The Root:
 
“There were 13,459 stop-and-frisks reported in 2019, and that is 2,451 more than the 11,008 reported in 2018—or a jump of 22 percent.
 
“It is important to note that these are the number of incidents ‘reported’ and may not be an actual representation of how many times stop-and-frisk has actually happened, because as a means of trying to downplay the rise in numbers, the New York Daily News reports the NYPD “said the 2019 increase is ‘unlikely to be a true increase in stops, but rather more accurate and complete reporting’ — inferring that the lower stop numbers in previous years may be inaccurate.”
 
I’m sorry. I’ve never seen these numbers before… There were 365 days in last year. That means every day, roughly 37 mostly Black and brown people are stopped for pretty much NO REASON AT ALL except that they happen to be Black or brown, and they were frisked. Now remember, STOP AND FRISK WAS DEEMED UNCONSTITUTIONAL IN 2013. But still 37 people every day are subjected to this demeaning, unconstitutional act. And we’re concerned those numbers may be UNDERREPORTED!
 
THAT’S CRAZY!! Until you think of this…
 
“Still, the numbers are much lower than the 694,482 stop-and-frisks that were conducted in 2011, when use of the practice was at its peak, and still lower than the 191,851 stops that happened in 2013—the same year federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled that stop-and-frisk was unconstitutional, violated the Fourth Amendment rights of New Yorkers, and was racially discriminatory—a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourth Amendment.”
 
Now, I’m not a math wiz, but my calculator works… That means at the height of stop and frisk, an average of 1,903 people were stopped and frisked EVERY SINGLE DAY of 2011!! And this disproportionally happens in Black and brown neighborhoods.
 
Are you kidding me?? New York is a big city, but come on now. Nearly 2000 people every single day? And these numbers were most likely UNDER REPORTED!! Think about these numbers multiplied by the number of cities across the country who were and still practice stop and frisk? Is there any question why mass incarceration is such a problem?
 
Now, could you imagine what would happen if the police went into YOUR white neighborhood and stopped and frisked 37 people every single day? Can you see why Michael Bloomberg is backing away from this like it’s the coronavirus?

In 1921, the everyday ordinary white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma destroyed the suburb of Greenwood, the wealthiest African American neighborhood in the nation at the time. Dynamite was tossed from airplanes onto the tops of buildings. Reports indicate that the National Guard, called by the governor to restore order, actually turned their machine guns on Black citizens.

This article on AllThatsInteresting.com, offers a striking narrative account of one of the bloodiest examples of the warfare waged by normal white people against their African American neighbors. Black Wall Street was perhaps the most famous of these massacres, but it was just one example of dozens of large scale attacks. And it was indicative of hundreds of individual home invasions, and thousands of assassinations and lynchings that occurred in the violent destruction of African American generational wealth carried out by our fellow citizens all over the country.

READ MORE HERE

From FloridaToday:

Harry T. Moore knew he was a marked man.

He helped sign up black voters throughout the state in the 1930s and ’40s, organized more than 50 Florida branches of the NAACP and investigated lynchings around the state.

It was his insistence on equal rights and his refusal to be intimidated that led to his killing on Christmas Night, 1951, in the small city of Mims in East Central Florida. Moore’s wife, Harriette, also was killed by the bomb set beneath their home.

”Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore were the first martyrs of the civil rights movement,” said Sonya Mallard, coordinator of the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Memorial Park and Museum in Mims, which is built on the spot where the Moores were murdered. “Harry T. Moore got over 116,000 blacks to vote. Remember, voting is a big thing, and for Harry T. Moore to do that, he traveled the backroads in Florida with threats against his life.”

READ MORE HERE

‘Hard to Place’: Kelis, Kaliedoscope and Other Cautionary Tales

Kelis and her brilliant debut, Kaliedoscope, signaled another bright light in the loose non-genre that the music industry’s apartheid would probably call “Black Alternative” (or what others might call “Distorted Soul”). It was bold, brash and very good. But she ran into too many of the old familiar tales that plague so many artists.

From The Guardian:

As a musician, Kelis was often called “hard to place”, which is another way of saying that record companies and radio stations did not know how to sell her. Refusing to be restricted to the R&B and hip-hop boxes into which young black artists are often shoved, Kelis’s versatile, distinctive voice meant producers as varied as David Guetta, will.i.am and Dave Sitek were keen to work with her. She has made dance music, soul music and even – on my favourite of her songs, Like You, from her fourth album, 2006’s Kelis Was Here – sampled Mozart. But that variety may also have worked against her, because it means she does not have an easy, ready-fit brand. On top of that, she had a run of bewilderingly bad luck with record companies.

The story of the music industry is one of young artists getting ripped off, again and again, because they are too young to understand the contracts they have signed until it is too late. What is different in Kelis’s case, she says, is that it was her friends who ripped her off.

“I was told we were going to split the whole thing 33/33/33, which we didn’t do,” she says. Instead, she says, she was “blatantly lied to and tricked”, pointing specifically to “the Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff”. As a result, she says she made nothing from sales of her first two albums, which were produced by the Neptunes. But she did not notice for a few years, because she was making money from touring, “and just the fact that I wasn’t poor felt like enough”, she says. She sighs: “Their argument is: ‘Well, you signed it.’ I’m like: ‘Yeah, I signed what I was told, and I was too young and too stupid to double-check it.’”

READ MORE HERE

The Oral History of Prince’s Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show

“And the LORD, opened up the clouds and a mighty storm burst forth from Heaven during “Purple Rain”. And THE LORD GOD, JEHOVAH/ALLAH/YAHWEH/JAH exclaimed: “THIS is my FAVORITE ARTIST, and y’all are about to see A SHOW!!”

This is a fun behind the scenes account of the legendary event. Also fantastic footage of Prince’s Press Conference performance.

From The Ringer:

“It was the most scared I was in my life,” says executive producer Charles Coplin, then the NFL’s head of programming. “And I’m sure I wasn’t alone.”

The man scheduled to perform was nervous, too. Yes, even Prince saw the potential for disaster. “People are like, ‘He gets nervous?’” says his musical director and keyboardist, Morris Hayes. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, he’s not nervous for himself. He’s nervous for us.’ He’s trying to make sure that we’re in the right places at the right parts. What’s gonna happen when it starts raining and the floor’s slick?”

READ MORE HERE

The Art of Deliberate Creation: “Use Me Up” by JusBam featuring Nadir Omowale Now Available on All Platforms

You have the power to create the life that YOU want to live. You know this, right? Students of the Law of Attraction call this, the Law of Deliberate Creation. It essentially means you get what you focus on, whether you want it or not, so it’s best to focus on the positive changes and developments that you want to create in your life. Seek and ye shall find. Ask and ye shall receive. Knock, and doors will be opened unto you.

Nashville emcee JusBam (Kyna Ealy) had a vision to create a project that could be a blueprint for anyone who wants to create the life of their dreams. She came to Detroit in 2019, and enlisted Nadir Omowale to help her bring her vision to light. Nadir worked on the track, an updated version of the Bill Withers classic “Use Me”. Nadir sang and plays most of the instruments here, along with Windsor/Detroit phenomenon Phil Whitfield, who injects some tasty organ, and Rashida Johnson and Ben Will who add spirit-filled gospel vocal flourishes.

In the end, JusBam manifested a funky track that provides a blueprint for you to attract and create all that you desire for yourself. Bam says, follow the steps she outlines here, just like she did – AND DOES – in all aspects of life, and you to can create the life you want to live for yourself. Bam just dropped the EP called Workin’ Contradiction, which she bills as “a preview of her next” full-length album project, and her dream is manifest right before your very eyes.

Listen to the track above, and purchase it from your favorite online retailer immediately, for a reminder on how to make the Law of Deliberation can work in your life.

The Wilmington Coup 1898: When White Supremacists Overthrew an Elected Government

Defeated white voters in Wilmington literally staged a violent coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of their city. Across the nation, similar acts of domestic terrorism crushed democracy in the United States.

Can this country truly be called a democracy when violence and racial intimidation overshadow voter rights and other forms of political power?

From The NY Times:

A town that once boasted the largest percentage of black residents of any large Southern city found itself in the midst of a systematic purge. Successful black men were targeted for banishment from the city, while black workers left all their possessions behind as they rushed to the swamps for safety. Over 60 people died. No one seemed to care. The governor of North Carolina cowered in the face of the violent rebellion, worried about his own life. President William McKinley turned a blind eye to the bloodshed. And Waddell was selected as mayor as the white supremacists forced the duly elected officials to resign.

READ MORE HERE

All US presidents are ‘captives of the military-industrial complex’: Scholar

“The continued occupation of Iraq and Syria by US military forces contravenes all international norms and standards. Both the Syrian government and patriotic forces in the Iraqi government have demanded that the US withdraw its military but to no avail. There is no legitimate reason for the continued US presence in either country.”

“It is not surprising that the illegal US occupation of both countries has elicited popular resistance. The people of every nation have the inherent right to defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity from foreign invasion. Thus, US Secretary of State Pompeo’s assertion that it is acting defensively in attacking forces friendly to the Syrian and Iraqi governments is completely without merit,” he added.

“But, it is standard American practice to cry ‘national defense’ when it engages in offensive wars of aggression. Every US president talks peace and wages war and Trump’s talk about withdrawing US forces from the Middle East is likewise so much blather,” he said.

READ MORE HERE

The Pentagon’s Long Con

From The Nation:

“People condemn Trump for his incessant lying and his con games—and rightly so. But few Americans condemn the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state, even though we’ve been the victims of their long con for decades now. As it happens, from the beginning of the Cold War to late last night, they’ve remained remarkably skilled at exaggerating the threats the U.S. faces and, believe me, that represents the longest con of all. It’s kept the military-industrial complex humming along, thanks to countless trillions of taxpayer dollars, while attempts to focus a spotlight on that scam have been largely discredited or ignored.”

READ MORE HERE

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